1. Bishop Amat — Koa back at QB with Camargo in bigger role.
2. Charter Oak — Experience at QB/RB and Prevost back to lead D.
3. La Mirada — Tons of experience, but can you trust them?
4. La Serna — QB Palmer being back is huge head start.
5. Chino Hills — Has really nice replacements for grad losses.
6. San Dimas — RB Payton back, your early Mid-Valley favorite?
7. South Hills — QB Goss is back and Sierra will be easier.
8. La Habra — Not sure there’s room to climb higher.
9. Santa Fe — QB Lara is one of the top weapons around.
10. Rio Hondo Prep — RB Tayco back and they always reload.
11. West Covina — Would be higher, but I heard things.
12. Diamond Bar — Would be lower, but I heard things.
13. Muir — Program headed in right direction.
14. Monrovia — Dynamic senior class departs, some key parts remain.
15. Diamond Ranch — Delp, Bryan lead bevy of veteran returners.
16. Los Altos — Leading passer/rusher back. Watch out!
17. Claremont — Leading passer, rusher, receiver return.
18. La Salle — Harvey, Akins good players to build around.
19. Bonita — Better luck required but QB Diebold is back.
20. Rowland — RB Duffus returns and Raiders play smart.
21. Arroyo — QB Coto and two top tacklers are back.
22. Duarte — Another offseason of Martin Magic. Look out.
23. Damien — If program gets stabilized, there’s some talent.
24. Azusa — Leading passer/rusher back. Bounce-back time?
25. Montebello — Like the returning experience on defense.

Damien received a whopping 70 applications for its open varsity football head coach job, according to principal Dr. Merritt Hemenway.

The deadline to apply for the job vacated by the resignation of Greg Gano passed earlier this month and now Hemenway and crew have moved on to sifting through all the applications and are aiming to start interviewing late next week.

“Because of the overwhelming numbers of applicants we need to develop a “short list” and are talking about filtering candidates to that list first,” Hemenway said via email on Thursday. “Thanks to my experience of being around Catholic high school sports for over 30 years, there are about a dozen men on the list that I know by reputation well enough already that I could see them as a potential good fit for Damien.

“This will be a nice challenge.”

Aram’s take: Stunned disbelief. I was thinking 30 or 35. The prevailing notion around town is that the Damien football program is on the skids, but 70 applicants clearly think otherwise. I wonder if the prospect of Damien moving to an all-Catholic school league/division has something to do with it. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens with the interview process. By the way, speaking from experience, Hemenway runs a tight ship when it comes to thing like this, so information may be limited as to who the finalists are.

It seems that Etiwanda can’t find anyone THEY WANT to take the open varsity football head coach position.

The latest word is that following Greg Gano’s rebuff of the job, the school offered it to Los Osos defensive coordinator Price, but he turned it down because he’s likely to get the Los Osos job.

Both Roland DeAnda and Jason Smith were given what’s being called “token second interviews”, but neither was offered the job.

So where does that leave us? Your guess is as good as mine …

8/30 SANTA MARGARITA
9/6 CHINO HILLS
9/13 at Rancho Cucamonga
9/20 CHARTER OAK
9/27 at St. Paul
10/4 at Culver City
10/11 at Notre Dame
10/18 BYE
10/25 ALEMANY
11/1 at Crespi
11/8 LOYOLA

Aram’s take: Wowza, wowza, wowza, Santa Margarita in the season opener. Is Amat about to slay another OC giant? Love the addition of Rancho. That should be a huge test. And of course CO and Chino Hills are nice. Bye week before Alemany could be helpful, depending on who you ask.

IMPORTANT: Bishop Amat is hosting a Hit & Hustle Football Camp on Saturday, January 19th from 9 am-3 pm. Cost of camp is $75 and is run by the Lancers’ coaching staff and current players. Each camper receives six hours of instruction, camp t-shirt, certificate of participation, hot dog lunch, and camp photo. Questions should be sent to Coach Steve Hagerty at shagerty@bishopamat.org, or call him at 626-962-2495 ext 6001. Camp brochure is available at the BA website.